


It's A Battle Cry, It's A Symphony

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Prompt Fills [25]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-29 19:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12637920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: On a backstreet of a distant human civilisation, Clara Oswald has a split-second to make a decision. One that will haunt her in the days and weeks to come, and will drive her to wonder just what kind of person she is.





	It's A Battle Cry, It's A Symphony

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt:
> 
> _"Doctor tell me, am I a good woman?" Clara does something, something bad. She hasn't slept for days and when it comes to telling her best friend, she doesn't know if she can. I always wondered what would happen if Clara did something the Doctor wouldn't._
> 
> Thematically kind of dark, so urm, apologies about that.

It started, as it so often seemed to these days, with a mistake. Not on the Doctor’s part – that had been his MO for a while, certainly, as he blustered and scowled and snapped his way through the early days of his regeneration; but now he was gentle and warm and kind in a way that reminded her very much of the man she had first known – but on hers.  She couldn’t seem to help herself – on each adventure she found herself growing all the more bold, and acting in ways she’d never had dreamed of back when she’d first encountered the floppy-haired man who had turned into the silver-haired stick insect she now found holding her hand with the kind of frequency that tended to make her heart do uncomfortable things if she thought about it for too long. Sometimes she’d catch him looking at her out of the corner of his eye as she made speeches or acted with bravado or lied her way out of a situation; an expression on his face that she couldn’t – or didn’t want to – read, and she tried not to think too much about his opinion of her. She wanted to be like him, and if that was a crime then so be it: she was a criminal. If wanting to be strong and assertive and in control was so very wrong, then why had she made it almost to her thirtieth year without having felt the need to change? 

Something about this adventure was not like the others. This adventure was full of humans who were afraid and angry and on edge, lashing out at each other in fear of the mysterious plague spreading across their city. Tensions were high, tempers were fraying, and the entire place heaved and crackled with the kind of energy that made the hairs on the back of Clara’s neck stand up. She wouldn’t have admitted it to the Doctor, but she was grateful for his presence and for his hand in hers, even if she was the one who had entwined their grips this time, seeking the comfort that his oddly cool skin brought her and trying to walk closer to him without overtly signalling her uncertainty. 

They paced the streets, men and women and children with sunken eyes and wary sneers peering at them from out of the shadows with disdainful curls of the lip that signalled precisely what they thought of the out-of-towners. There was no respect there. There was no thought that perhaps these strangers could save them. There was only contempt, and the feeling of being treated like zoo animals. It put Clara’s teeth on edge; she was accustomed to being welcomed, celebrated, and lauded with praise once the day was saved, and while she didn’t expect such behaviour, she also did not expect the overt hostility that burned her skin like a flame as she passed the mistrustful civilians by. 

The Doctor chattered away to her as they headed towards the centre of the city – meaningless facts about the architecture and the oxygen filtration systems and the artificial suns – and she nodded and made approximate noises of agreement at the appropriate times as she fought the urge to shudder. The change came as she failed in her task of maintaining a façade of bravery, shivering from head to toe only once, but it was enough to freeze the Doctor on the spot and look at her properly for the first time; enough for him to notice her wide, panicked eyes and her laboured breathing. He was about to speak when a great mass of citizens rose out of nowhere and surged past them, and in her panic, she made her fatal error: out of shock, she dropped his hand, finding herself carried her away from her companion and spirited away into a rabbit-warren of back alleys and fetid waste disposal units. 

Blinking in the darkness, Clara swallowed her fear and took a tentative step forward, reaching out with one hand only to find rough fingers closing around her wrist, and she let out a strangled little squeak as she was tugged into a patch of amber light and her assailant was revealed to her. He wasn’t tall – taller than her, yes, but not the reassuring, stringy type of tall she was used to with the Doctor – and he was leering at her in a kind of way that Clara recognised well enough from her time on Earth. All the many centuries and light years between here and her home planet, and yet still these men retained their baseline urges. Still there were predators out there who cared little for the collapse of society around them, focused as they were on satisfying their own needs. 

“Hello,” the stranger said conversationally, as though he weren’t holding onto her wrist hard enough to hurt. She tried to pull away, but he only smirked and took hold of her other arm, twisting both of them uncomfortably as she fought not to cry out. “Now, now, be nice.” 

“I’m nice,” she said defensively, finding the energy from somewhere to glare at this foul excuse for a human as though she wasn’t in imminent danger of… well, she tried not to think about it. “I’m very nice, thank you very much.” 

“So, maybe you won’t object to showing me just how nice,” he told her, shifting her wrists into one hand while the other strayed to the top button of her blouse. “I’m sure that a pretty little prim and proper thing like you is just an absolute _whore_ when it counts, so why don’t you show me, darling?”

 

* * *

 

“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked as he looked down at her from the dais in the council chamber. He was panting from having run the length of the room with the sonic screwdriver held aloft, but the plague had been cured and he was grinning from ear to ear like a cat who’d got the cream. Or he had been until several seconds prior, when he’d realised she wasn’t whooping in triumph with him, and then his expression had faltered somewhat.

“Fine,” she lied, clenching and unclenching her fists behind her back and trying to remember how to breathe normally. “Fine, just… tired.”

“Your face looks funny.” 

“Rude,” she managed to say, keeping her tone as light as he would expect it to be. “We’ve discussed this.”

“Well, it does,” he muttered sulkily, but he looked somewhat chastised. “Are you sure you’re OK?” 

“I’m sure.” 

“But-” 

“I’m sure!” she snapped, and his eyes widened in contrition. “Sorry. I just. Sorry. Can we go home please? That is, can I go home? I need to sleep.” _I need to be alone,_ she thought to herself. _I need to shower. I need to throw up. I need to do a thousand things that I can’t do here, or in the TARDIS, or anywhere you might see or hear or sense it. I don’t need your compassion on this matter. It’s the last thing I could bear right now._

“Of course,” he said, his expression hangdog, and he led the way back to the TARDIS in terse silence, Clara loitering a few steps behind him but keeping him in sight as they walked. The journey back to London was equally muted and subdued, and she stepped out of the TARDIS without so much as a goodbye. She could sense the Doctor’s confusion, enormous and all-encompassing, as she left, but she only closed the blue doors behind her and bolted for her bathroom before he could ask her anything or get any ideas, and as she crouched beside the toilet and vomited violently, she was aware of the faint sound of the spaceship dematerialising. Once she was entirely done with being sick, reduced to dry heaving in a way that made her stomach and throat hurt all the more, she crawled into the shower fully clothed and switched it on, sitting there until she was soaked to the skin and the water ran cold, and then and only then did she scoot out of the tiny shower cubicle, strip off her wet clothes and stagger into bed.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor had meant to return a few hours later. He’d told himself that Clara needed the time to rest, and then he would go back and check that she really was alright, because he might be oblivious to the feelings of others but his internal Clara-focused barometer knew when something was wrong with his human companion. 

As it was, however, the TARDIS had other ideas, and when the time machine eventually saw fit to deposit him back into the locale of Clara’s flat, several days had passed. The lounge curtains were drawn, keeping the room in semi-darkness, and as he turned on the spot and allowed his vision to adjust, he found Clara curled up on the sofa, staring unseeingly through him where he stood and barely so much as exhibiting a single sign that she knew he was there. 

“Clara?” he whispered, feeling his stomach drop as he understood that something was very, very wrong with his best friend. “Clara, it’s me.” 

“I know,” she said blankly, still not looking at him properly, and he fell to his knees beside her and placed a terrified hand on her cheek. “Hello.”

“What’s wrong?” he murmured in a panic, slipping his hand down to her throat so that his fingers could check her pulse, assessing her temperature as he felt the sluggish beat of her heart through the pads of his fingers. He noticed then that her hair was unwashed, her face devoid of its usual bright colours, and her clothes were stained and oversized and quite unlike her usual outfits. “Clara? Hey?” 

“Am I a good woman?” she asked out of nowhere, and he frowned a little in blind incomprehension.

“I don’t understand.” 

“You asked me once if you were a good man,” her voice was faintly raspy, as though through lack of use, and he realised then that she hadn’t left here in several days, his fear only increasing in response to this revelation. “And I answered. I’m asking you now: am I a good woman?” 

“Yes,” he told her without hesitation. “Yes, of course you are. I don’t… what’s brought this on, Clara?”

She shook her head, and he felt his stomach lurch as he considered what might have prompted such a question. There couldn’t have been anything, unless… 

“Was it something on Troilian-39?” 

She blinked at him for a moment, then nodded once; a sharp, jerky motion of the head that was almost imperceptible in the gloom. 

“What happened?” 

“Doctor, would I still be a good woman if I’d… if I’d hurt someone?” 

“Oh Clara,” he murmured, anger beginning to creep over him at the thought of someone or something threatening his Clara. “Who?” 

“He was…” she began, dropping her gaze, and her eyes filled with tears as she mumbled: “When we were apart… he was… he tried to… he was going to…” 

“Did he touch you?” he asked, his voice low and furious. “Did he hurt you?”

Clara raised one hand and let the sleeve of her jumper ride up enough to reveal a circle of angry purple bruising around her wrist.

“I’ll kill him.” 

“No, you won’t,” she closed her eyes, but too late to stop tears from spilling down her cheeks. “Because I think I already did.” 

“What did you do?” 

“He was trying to undo my top and he was distracted and I… there was a stone and I… I hit him, I hit him so hard and there was this _crack_ and he fell over and I didn’t think, I just ran. I just ran and ran until I found you again and I don’t know if I killed him or if he’s still alive or-” 

“Clara,” he said quietly, leaning forward and pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “My Clara. I’m so sorry, I should’ve been more careful and kept an eye on you and not let any of those bastards near you. You didn’t do anything wrong, and I hope to god he’s dead on that bloody backwater planet.” 

“What?” she looked up at him in confusion, visibly taken aback by the coldness of his tone. “But you-” 

“The things he would’ve done… he deserved nothing less. You saved yourself. You saved yourself and you saved other women from the same fate. Oh, my Clara, you’ve not done anything wrong; far from it.” 

“But I hurt him,” she began to sob. “He was a person, and I just…” 

“He would’ve done unspeakable things to you and so many others. He wasn’t human; he was a monster. My Clara, I promise you, you are not the bad person in this situation. Far from it.” 

“But I _feel_ like one.” 

“Oh, Clara Oswald. You are not and never could be a bad person, not if your life depended on it. In fact, I think you might have been an avenging angel in this case.” 

“I’m an awful person.” 

“No,” he said quietly. “No, you weren’t. And I want you to know that you’re a good woman. You’ve saved so many women by stopping this man. You’ve saved planets and civilisations and species with me. Rassilon knows, you’ve saved _me_ more times than I can count, what with the time stream and the echoes and everything you sacrificed. And you’ve saved yourself. There’ve been so many times when I couldn’t have carried on after experiencing what you have, but you have never once faltered. You’re strong, and you’re kind, and you’re brave, and you’re _good_.” 

“Doctor…” 

“My Clara,” he said softly. “I assure you: I have witnessed evil, and I have witnessed hatred, and there is not a drop of either of those things in you.”

“Really?” 

“Really,” he cupped her cheek in his palm, and she leant into his touch with a shy, grateful little smile. “Now, when did you last eat? Hey?” 

“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Yesterday, I think.” 

“How about I make you something?” he suggested, knowing that right now she needed someone to look after her. “Yeah? And a nice cup of tea, and we can sit on the sofa and watch terrible programmes about couples or something on Netflix.” 

“You don’t hate me?” 

“Why on earth would I hate you?” 

She shrugged, dropping her gaze in embarrassment. 

“Clara Oswald, I could never hate you. Not even if the fate of the universe rested on it.” 

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice cracking again as she began to sob once more, and he hauled himself onto the sofa and let her scramble onto his lap, his hearts breaking as he wrapped her in his arms and she wept against his chest. “Thank you, Doctor; I’m sorry, I… thank you.” 

“It’s alright,” he soothed, reaching for the blanket she kept on the back of the settee and wrapping it around his tiny companion’s trembling form, committing himself to being her source of comfort for the foreseeable future. “I promise you, my Clara. It’s alright.”


End file.
